Use of "aus" in a sentence

[Elliot-M]

Hi, I was doing one of the stories and came across this sentence...

"Monika ruft ihre beste Freundin Johanna von ihrem neuen Büro aus an."

what is the meaning of "aus" here?

[Max.Em]

"von ... aus" basically means "from".

[slamRN]

But why does this sentence have both "von" and "aus"?

[Max.Em]

It's a kind of prepositional expression that "encapsulates" the actual position. With only one half of it, the sentence doesn't make sense. See also https://www.dict.cc/?s=von+aus

[slamRN]

Thanks, I don't get it; but I will work on it.

[Max.Em]

I'm sorry, there is not much more of an explanation. The single words mean something like "of"/"from" and "out", but together they form a fixed expression that has exactly this meaning of coming from, starting from, originating from, seen from.

Sometimes German does these funny things, when some part of a sentence is split and put around another one, like the separable verbs do (anschalten -> Ich schalte das Licht an), or the compound predicates (essen (Inf.) - habe gegessen (Perfekt) - Ich habe heute Mittag ein Schnitzel gegessen).

"Von ... aus" works the same way: "Von meinem Standpunkt aus ist es nicht schwer". (From my point of view it's not difficult).

[tanne101]

It explains that the call comes from the office. It has the same meaning like in the sentence: "Ich komme aus Frankreich."
It explains a direction. I would translate "aus" with "from"